Full Circles Aren't Squares
by Maevenly
Summary: Complete: Lee, Kara, Sam, Dee... all victims of the interminable Quadrangle of Doom. Here's my take on how that storyline should have been resolved. NO character bashing, just good, fabulous, canon-istic storytelling.
1. Chapter 1

_**"You and Kara Thrace are connected… I'll marry you… until the Cylons come back or Kara Thrace walks back into your life."**_

_**"Tell me you're just as afraid as I am, about needing someone as much as I need you."**_

_**"I'm not the one you want to be with, Kara."**_

_**"KARA THRACE LOVES LEE ADAMA!"**_

_**"Things just got complicated – again."**_

Unfinished Business, Extended Version

* * *

Chapter One:

Bending at the waist, Sam tugged at his laces to the cadence of her parting, biting words.

'Don't forget your boots, Sammy."

Gods, she was a bitch – and not the kind he liked. Feisty, cocky and daring, yes – that was his kind of woman. Condescending, sarcastic and down-right mean was the woman who just sauntered out of the bunk room and didn't look back as she succinctly summed up the high points of their marriage with those five words.

Tying his other boot, jerking the laces so tight he'd have marks on his feet later, he wished he could call her a slut, tell her she was frakked in the head or some other ego-salvaging insult. But he couldn't. She was Starbuck, the Killer of Leobens and still the best Viper pilot to have ever straddled a flight-chair. The woman might be damaged, but those who didn't know her personally regaled her. She was a legend within the Fleet and more than once he'd found himself dropping her name, and the fact that he was her husband, whenever he got into a pinch that he couldn't talk his way out of with a good Pyramid story . If anything, shame at letting himself be used as little more than a 'back-scratcher' for her 'itch' had him glancing up at the nearby table-top to see if she had tossed down some cash before she left. She would've too – if she thought about it.

But, the kick to the gut was this: he still loved her.

That sent a chair flying across the bunk-room.

He'd put hands up and said, 'okay', when he found her in that apartment on New Caprica standing a little too close to that frakking dying Cylon and a blonde toddler on her hip when her only explanation was a terse, 'not now'. She had looked him in the eye and told him point-blank that she couldn't handle being with him and that she wanted to hurt someone and it might as well be him, and he stood there and took it. Hell, that didn't even keep him from coming back for more the first chance he got.

But this… This was… This was it.

Shrugging into his Buccaneer's vest and running a shaky hand through his Kara-tousled hair…

A sudden realization had him stopping in mid-motion.

She never touched him.

Well, she 'did' – but not like that. She had gripped his shoulders – for leverage. She had hooked her legs behind his knees, but only so that they could connect more solidly. She had intertwined her fingers with his, but only so that she could push her palm against his so that she could speed up the arrival of her impending orgasm. Her need was release, not Samuel T. Anders. But she never 'touched' him. And when he tried to press a kiss to her forehead afterwards – even as their breathing had yet to even out – she had hopped out of bed and started rummaging around for her clothes. Telling her he wanted her back barely made her pause long enough to coldly restate that casual frakking was all he was going to get from her and that she couldn't handle anything else.

Those words, coming from her mouth, echoing in his mind, sent his sizable fist into the door of someone's locker.

Flexing his hand, testing to see if the 'oh frak, that hurts' pain in his knuckles drowned-out the 'I told you so' mantra that his Id was chanting in his head, he scrutinized his face in the mirror and with no clear reason why, thought about shaving.

Leaving the bunkroom and making his way to the head, a sliver of pride appeared in the wasteland that was once his male ego. It was enough to lift his chin but not strong enough to pull his hands out of his pockets.

Kara would be going to 'the dance' – to _him_ – freshly frakked and smelling like Sam Anders.

Shutting the hatch to the shower room behind him, a quick scan of the room translated to him having to wait for a turn at a sink. The head was crowded; those just coming off duty were scrambling to clean up before attending the night's festivities.

Exchanging casual greetings with crew-members who knew of him but people he couldn't put a name to a face, a voice carried through the steam and over the sounds of running water. A towel sailing to a bench opposite the shower stalls couldn't be missed nor were the pair of grey panties it landed on.

"Hey, Seelix – where'd you say you left that spare bra of yours?"

The spark that was going to see him through the night was snuffed out by a wet, used towel.

How apt.

There was a time when carrying his woman's scent on his body validated a very primal side of his masculinity.

Right now, Sam Anders was the walking, talking, living equivalent of Kara Thrace's wet towel.

Turning on his heel, making for 'the dance floor' by the longest route possible, gave him ample time to repeat the same vow.

_Gods be damned, Kara. One more chance – that's it._


	2. Playing Against The House

My solution to the dreaded Quadrangle of Doom…

* * *

_**"You and Kara Thrace are connected… I'll marry you… until the Cylons come back or Kara Thrace walks back into your life."**_

_**"Tell me you're just as afraid as I am, about needing someone as much as I need you."**_

_**"I'm not the one you want to be with, Kara."**_

_**"KARA THRACE LOVES LEE ADAMA!"**_

_**"Things just got complicated – again."**_

Unfinished Business, Extended Version

* * *

Chapter Two:

Kara Thrace wasn't the only woman who could challenge Lee's sense of honour.

"Settle this – tonight."

No declarative statements about love and loyalty. No recounting of promises kept and vows upheld. No expounding on the benefits of a stable home and bankable consistency; sticking to rules, regulations and the codes of conduct that defined how soldiers and spouses were supposed to conduct themselves.

The reason why was simple.

She wasn't going to.

She didn't have to.

Nor was she going to lose her self-respect to the black hole of self-destruction that was Kara Thrace. The line in the sand had been drawn and all that remained was to see which woman was going to be standing by herself when The Dance came to an end.

She had put up with the weight gain, the bad hair and chalked up the lack of physical intimacy in their marriage to the strain that came with commanding a Battlestar. But all that had changed. Lee was fit again. He had been reinstated as Galactica's CAG. He kept a regular schedule. His relationship with the Admiral had graduated from terse to tenuous. All her hard work had paid off. Not once, during all that time, did she call him out on his personal behaviour. She'd stood by him because she was his wife and that's what wives do for their husbands.

And now, she was asking him to stand by her. To show her the same level of respect that she had shown him.

The roar of the crowd followed her out the door and into the hallway. Slumping against a vertical girder, her hair offered little insulation from the cold metal. Closing her eyes did little to protect her from the harsh overhead lighting. But, she wasn't going to be there for long. Lee would be coming for her at any moment and then they would have a long conversation about what nearly happened to their marriage.

After all, the other half of her self-fulfilling prophesies had yet to come true. They weren't *done* yet. She still had time.

The Cylons had come back but Kara Thrace had yet to walk back into his life. So far, whatever had happened between them had been bad enough to keep her at bay – for Lee to want to keep her at bay. As long as it – their falling out – stayed unresolved, she'd still have her husband in her life and she'd continue to be Mrs. Lee Adama. Did she love Lee Adama? No – not in a love-of-a-lifetime kind of way – but he knew that. She wasn't his end-all-be-all either. What they did have was respect, honour, friendship and marriage vows between them, which were more than she saw between most couples – before and after the holocaust.

It was more than he ever had with *her*.

Who was there for him when Kara Thrace went against orders and ended up putting a bullet in his shoulder? Where was she when the anaesthesia wore off? Where was she when Lee needed help smuggling Roslin off of Galactica? Where was she when the Admiral was shot? Who did the Admiral call into his office, when he needed someone to talk to, when the Fleet was divided? Where was Kara Thrace when...?

The sounds of boots climbing stairs had her stepping away from the bulkhead and squaring up with the exit hatch.

Scanning the sombre faces and ignoring the subdued bits of conversation she could hear, the sweaty, bruised face of her husband wasn't among them.

Pushing her way down through the ascending crewmembers, a strong, clear voice rang out with the clarity of a Condition One alert.

"So, you can frak another man's wife but you can't…?"

A crassly phrased challenge, echoing throughout the emptying arena, had more than just her focusing on the blonde pilot and man she was calling out as a coward. Those who drifted back towards the boxing ring smelled the makings of a good fight and the opportunity to give a first-person account of the Dance of the Night for weeks to come.

Insults, brutal attacks, flaying barbs, sweat, blood and pain were the weapons and shields Lee and Kara wielded against one another without mercy. Morbidly transfixed, unable to look away, she didn't have the necessary amount of righteous indignation inside her to shame those two into stopping.

That's not what their match was about. Not really. She knew that when she saw the precise moment the fight ceased to be about Lee repairing his damaged honour with Kara's face. Sympathetic wincing was reduced to reactive blinking. The level of emotion that fuelled every single one of Starbuck's powerful strikes against her former best friend came from a place within the other woman that she just couldn't fathom. And Lee – her husband – he was her match; there was no question about that. Never before had she seen someone fight so hard for someone's forgiveness as Kara Thrace did for Lee Adama's.

It was about crime and punishment. It was about reparation. It was about choices made. It was about pain, masked as hatred, being given a physical manifestation. It was about need. A need so long denied that as the match progressed, it had transformed into something so decidedly intimate that she felt like a voyeur by just standing in the shadows and watching the man she called 'husband' publicly 'frak' another woman.

Straining to listen to the crimes that Lee and Kara were accusing each other of committing, she didn't hear Anders coming up alongside her or taking up space near her elbow.

Hands folded around her upper arms, she pressed the pads of her fingers into her skin. She didn't even remember who spoke first, but when he said he was leaving, she was aware of her agreeing with him. The scorecard of 'Dualla versus Thrace' didn't mean anything. Not now. Not in the wake of what was happening down in that ring.

The top part of the hourglass she had been eying since Lee had been shot on Cloud Nine had emptied.

Like Anders's, she didn't need to see how the match would end to know where Lee and Kara would be sleeping tonight. She witnessed first hand the ferocity with which those two beat each other – a medical chart magnetically attached to the foot of a stretcher was going to have his name on it. *She* would be there too. The image of them sharing an intravenous drip-for-two and longing looks as their lips were too split to speak played out in her head as she made her way back to their quarters.

The tears she spilled into her pillow, the mascara and eye shadow smeared across the pillowcase, were purely reactionary. She had just lost so much. They all had. That was what she'd told him the day she got 'engaged' and it was still true now. She wanted to live every moment, wanted a chance to be like everyone else, to have something that anyone her age deserved to have. She wasn't crying over Lee. The truth of the matter was that she couldn't really say she lost him. She never truly had him in the first place. She had wilfully and knowingly married a version of Lee Adama that had pieces of his soul locked within Kara Thrace. She wanted what she wanted and she got what she got. Her tears were for her belief that labels and titles could bring personal happiness.

Rolling onto her side, balling her hand underneath her pillow, her eyes dried as the tears stopped. Calmness set in. The need to make a decision came into focus.

She'd always been told that if a line is drawn, she had to abide by the outcome – no matter what. Ultimatums didn't mean anything of there was room for debate.

If she fought for Lee, she'd have to play for keeps.


	3. Semantics

Full Circles Chapter 3

* * *

_**"You and Kara Thrace are connected… I'll marry you… until the Cylons come back or Kara Thrace walks back into your life."**_

_**"Tell me you're just as afraid as I am, about needing someone as much as I need you."**_

_**"I'm not the one you want to be with, Kara."**_

_**"KARA THRACE LOVES LEE ADAMA!"**_

_**"Things just got complicated – again."**_

**Unfinished Business, Extended Version**

* * *

The curtains around his bed in sickbay were a better play-back screen than the one in Pegasus's state-of-the-art Ready Room.

*** *** ***

"KARA!"

Wham! Lee snapped out a jab with his right hand

"Thace!"

Wham! The same right hand came up and clipped the edge of a jawline.

"LOVES-LEE-ADAMA!"

Two rapid fire pummels to a honed mid-section were followed by a fierce hit to the face.

Momentum had him bringing up his other gloved fist. This time he clocked her on the head.

One punch, delivering the price he paid for that one sentence, and she was down on all fours, looking at nothing but the mat.

She just had to push him. She just had to keep pushing and needling and then push some more. Snide comments, comparing him to his father, him as a friend and then him as a lover, rattled out of her mouth from the minute she walked into his line of sight. That's why he lost his fight with Helo. She distracted him. She deliberately put herself on his radar and made sure she taunted him enough to break his self-control. The biting insult that had him climbing into the ring with her and serving her dose of blood and pain was her of own making. He didn't put those words into her mouth any more than she made it impossible for him to walk away. He had been all set to walk away; to call it a night when Tigh announced that The Dance was over. Did he like it? No. They did have a score to settle. But he needed the time it would take for him to clean up to come up with some way to make his wife believe the half-truths that he told himself every time he got within twenty feet of someone merely mentioning anything that had to do with Kara Thrace.

He could hear Helo telling Starbuck to get up. He could feel the sweat and blood on his body chill his skin. His heartbeat was still sounding in his ears, thudding hard in his chest, but he could still walk away. He'd made his point. She had gone down with one hard hit.

_Kara Thrace loves Lee Adama!_ Her voice, shouted to the heavens above a planet long since left behind, completely filled the boxing ring

_Do'ya love me now, Kara? _His question, a vicious sneer, radiated off of him in waves. Moving away, giving her space to recover as mandated by the rules, he waited for her concession. She'd be a fool to get up and try to take him on again.

Then she craned her neck and looked up at him. In one moment, a night time full of memories played out against the backdrop of a pair of hazel-green eyes grappling with a decision.

His ears closed up and his vision split. The past and the present arranged themselves side-by-side in front of him. He could see her standing in front of him with her sweat-soaked short hair and fresh bruises blooming on her body just as clearly as he could see her sex-mussed long hair falling around her face as she was perched on top of him. All he could hear was her. The echo of that New Caprican night drowned out the cheering coming from those who stuck around to see the last fight of the night.

Hell, that echo was something he'd been hearing since leaving New Caprica. It started the morning after they'd both shouted their mutual love to the sky and confessed their fears to each other. Except that the version he heard from her that night carried a different intonation from the one that started its insistent repetitions when she confirmed that marrying Anders was her idea.

Those five words were the reason why he didn't hear what Dee really said to him during that Raptor ride back to Pegasus. They were the reasons why he petitioned the Admiral to abandon the Colonists when the Cylons reappeared. They were the reasons why he ultimately sacrificed Pegasus. Those five words made up the frakking flea-infested hair shirt he wore underneath his flight suit and dress blues every time he climbed in his Viper or got within earshot of someone who either knew of, spoke of, or referenced Kara Thrace for the past seventeen months. The closer he got to her, the more the echo diminished into one deep, strong, potent, cruel school-yard taunt that pulled them together as much as it repelled them.

It was there when he threatened to pull her wings after Kara scored Kat's Viper.

A bare foot swung out and he bounced against the canvas, every muscle and bone jarred by the impact. Surging to his feet, the same foot snapped out and connected with the side of his head.

It was there right now, when her gloved hands provided little protection from his attack. Each blow carried one echo of a single word: Kara Thrace loves Lee Adama.

Another kick to his mid-section had him stepping backwards as she went on the offensive. Taking the opening, he could feel her blows land on his body. Her comment about rules was directly connected to his fist colliding with her nose. It was a cheap shot, but by the Gods he'd make her hurt and bleed. Make her pain and blood mirror his pain and blood; the spattering of drops on the canvas underneath his feet was the same colour as the fluvial deposits on New Caprica.

The irony wasn't lost to him.

Strike for strike, he matched her street-tactics with perfectly formed accusations he had rehearsed hundreds of times. It fuelled him as much as it took its toll. His anger, hurt and frustrations, the things he had been clinging to, were dissipating. Even as his words were hurled at the most sensitive parts of her psyche, attempting to pick at scars he knew she carried, he no longer had them to hold on to and the empty place where those accusations, speeches and pointed comments were stored was quickly filling in with other things.

His strength was waning. It took longer to land his blows. The words behind his blows were reduced to the same hoarse whisper he used to accuse her of the very same things he did himself: self-protection, running away, and playing against the rules. The scathing quality, the mocking cadence, fell away the longer they fought. Those same five words became a need-ridden question; a question that had an answer; an answer that had been between them since before that soul-shifting night on New Caprica.

_Yeah, Lee – I still love you._

He knew she meant it when she didn't let him fall. Barely able to stand, emotionally rung out, he leaned on her and, for a pivotal moment and a half, she didn't let him fall. She held him up and held onto him, even after he called their match a tie and she confessed that she missed him, which even his foggy brain was able to recognize was little more than a euphemism for something she couldn't say just then. Then his knees buckled and he took her down with him. Landing on top of each other only to roll apart after a moment, lying side-by-side was more intimate than if they were curled up in a bed together.

The school-yard taunt evaporated into silence. More importantly, the echo – that frakking ingratiating echo – had transcended into a rhythmic heartbeat: thump-thump, thump-thump, tha-thump-thump.

Kara Thrace loves Lee Adama: thump-thump, thump-thump, tha-thump-thump.

Vaguely he was aware of Helo beckoning for help as Sharon climbed into the ring and crouched down by Kara's side. Somehow, some way, Karl scraped him off the canvas as he watched Sharon heft Kara's nearly dead weight. A brunette – Seelix – stepped in and helped Athena carry Starbuck out of the arena.

Cocking his head to one side to see the three women more clearly only made him groan slightly; it was having one of his arms stretched to reach Karl's supportive shoulder that made him grunt loudly.

"I think Cottle had better check you out first, before you start thinking those kinds of thoughts, Lee." Karl chimed good-naturedly.

It hurt to smile. That's why his grin quickly turned to something more contemplative.

"You know – I never noticed how much Seelix looks like Kara." Lee mused.

"Meh – I guess." Comparing the two women while still keeping a gentle-but-firm grip on Apollo, Helo added. "Maybe – from a certain angle, that is."

Taking the stairs slowly, trailing the ladies by a good distance as they slowly worked their way down the corridors, Lee let himself think one more coherent thought before completely succumbing to pain and exhaustion.

_Seelix would be a good match for Anders. _

*** *** ***

The sounds of violent retching were followed by the sounds of the on-duty nurse hurriedly tending to someone not too far away from him. The noise was enough to wake him but his body had other ideas. Almost immediately, his eyes closed and blessed darkness overtook him.

The need for water was what woke him up the second time. The melted bags of ice that had been packed around his arms, legs and shoulders minimized the resulting swelling but had left him stiff. It was a struggle to bend any part of his body. Swinging his legs over the side of the gurney, the ache in his thighs travelled chest-high. It was a shaky hand that dribbled water into a cup and hoisted it to his split lips. Setting the cup down, it was the silhouette of someone shaking out a blanket that caught his attention and made him frown. The nurse was still with the same patient that had broken the quiet – squinting at the readout on his chronometer - more than an hour ago.

Contemplating how much effort it was going to take to make his legs carry him a measly twenty feet wasn't nearly the same amount of work it took to actually reach the next 'cubicle'.

Shifting the curtain aside, a metallic, acrid, smell wafted up from the nearby chair. The ties of a hospital johnny were trailing out of a balled up blanket. Next to the bed, the nurse was making the final adjustments to the monitor regulating the flow of oxygen travelling through the lengths of the transparent tubing.

"Should I page Doc Cottle?" Unable to look at anything but the pieces of equipment dotting the side of Kara's 'room', Lee put his question to the nurse.

"He's off-ship." The way she said it told him she had already called the doctor and gotten advice. Reading his expectant look to be more specific, she added, "She had a nightmare. Doctor Cottle has been giving her sleeping aides ever since she re-joined the Fleet, but given her current state, he didn't think it was wise – not with the concussion and all. Somehow, during her nightmare, her blood pressure spiked and she started to bleed again. Between that and what she swallowed when her nose was initially broken, her body rejected what had accumulated in her stomach. As it is, she's asleep now. It's best to let her rest. I'll be waking her up soon enough to check her vitals."

Setting the railing on the hospital bed and scooping up the soiled linens from the chair with one hand, she gave him a bit of reassurance.

"There's a bit of swelling around her neck; that'll go down in time. The reason for the oh-two is precautionary; the blood loss, bodily tension and constriction made Cottle think it was a good defensive measure but it's not an absolute medical necessity." Attempting to make him smile, she smirked, "And, if it's the one thing we aren't running out of around here, its hot air."

With that, the curtains silently parted and fell back together.

Like him, ice had been packed around every joint and all her major muscle groups. Her right knee, propped up by several pillows, looked swollen underneath the blankets. The strapping around her ribs accounted for her rigid posture. It was the state of Kara's face that gave him pause.

With his eyes, he traced the line of tubing from the regulator to where the dual feeds rested above her upper lip. Her nose was definitely broken, but whoever had reset it did a fairly decent job. Underneath all the puffiness and the bruising that was purpling the hollows around her eyes, it looked as straight as it did before their match. Her cheekbones were swamped with swelling and deep red contusions marked her jaw line. For a long moment he focused on the corner of her mouth, the place where he had clipped her seconds before they had stepped into that ring.

The walk over to her bedside had cost him precious energy his body desperately needed. Dizziness from his own concussion challenged his equilibrium; he still felt like the bad end of a Viper crash and wasn't going to be able to stand for too much longer. Battered hands, his hands, curled reflexively around the cool moulded plastic of the guard rails.

He wasn't going to apologize for fighting back. He wasn't even going to apologize for hitting her. He wasn't going to apologize for not holding back. Things between them were complicated as much as they were unnervingly simple. What had happened in that boxing ring was exactly what had to happen in order to reset their relationship – whatever that was.

No.

What made his chin dip to his chest, what made him close his eyes in the closest approximation of a prayer he ever truly sent to the Gods, was a single question, hesitantly proposed and tremulously awaiting an answer only she could give.

_Do you love me now, Kara?_


	4. House of Glass

Full Circles Chapter 4

My solution to the dreaded Quadrangle of Doom…

* * *

**_"You and Kara Thrace are connected… I'll marry you… until the Cylons come back or Kara Thrace walks back into your life."_**

**_"Tell me you're just as afraid as I am, about needing someone as much as I need you."_**

**_"I'm not the one you want to be with, Kara."_**

**_"KARA THRACE LOVES LEE ADAMA!"_**

**_"Things just got complicated – again."_**

**Unfinished Business, Extended Version**

* * *

Chapter 4

_Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Tha-thump-thump._

Harder.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Tha-thump-thump.

It wasn't stopping. It wasn't slowing down.

**Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Tha-thump-thump.**

If that frakker wasn't trying to get her killed, then he was trying to get himself killed.

_Well frak you, Lee-frakking-Adama_. _I'm not ready to die just yet._

That was one conversation she didn't want to have – again – with the Admiral. Once was enough. Okay, technically, she's done it twice. The first time was when she confessed that she fudged Zak's test scores. The second time was when she 'fessed that she shot Lee during that hostage crisis on Cloud Nine. There was NO WAY she was going to report to the Admiral's quarters and tell the Old Man that his son, while playing Go-Go Marine, was too busy watching out for her to keep an eye on his blind side.

Lucky Lee; all Kara 'Starbuck' Thrace's blind-sides were emotional. Which was the precise reason why Lee Adama was sitting in the jump-seat five feet away from her and not lying at her feet, encased in a body bag.

And who the frak did he think he was, playing dress up like that? Yeah, Lee was a hell of an officer and proficient enough at hand-to-hand to teach it to nuggets and 'headset heroes', but leading a squad of Marines on foot is a far cry from being the CAG and Head Pilot of a Viper squadron. When you're on foot, there's no DRADIS to alert you to enemy contact, no wingman backing you up and no fancy evasive manoeuvres to save your ass from an on-coming piece of ordinance. When you're on the ground, you've got three choices: duck, cover or don't be there in the first place. And just because he took the course, and passed, in War College didn't translate to field experience. Their little hike through the backcountry of Kobol didn't count. He had been going by the book, as it was written, back then just as much as he 'went by the numbers' a couple of hours ago. Granted three years was a long time, but didn't he learn anything from his little trip to the Astral Queen?

Frak! Even she knew where to draw the line between what she could do and what she was good at. The only reason why she had gotten caught up in the whole affair was because she had been on The Caspian, with Cally, recalibrating that ship's port-side thrusters when the Code Blue had been issued. Meeting the dispatched Raptor, she was glad to see Gunny emerge from the cabin. Seeing Lee step onto the skid boards, dressed in black and strapping on a helmet, she swallowed the 'what-the-frak-do-you-think-you're-doing' phrase she wanted to say and opted to give the Cylon Welcoming Party the most current SitRep. Surprise wasn't part of her game face when she was informed that she was going to be the final member of the team. Cottle might not have reinstated her flight status since The Dance two weeks ago but whether she was in the air or slinking her way down evacuated corridors of a battered freighter didn't change the fact that she was still the best shot in the Fleet.

The deep thrum of the Raptor's engine burning a path back to Galactica did little to stem the verbal tirade building in her mind. Even now, as The Caspian faded into the proverbial rear-view mirror and the body of the airlocked Simon model drifted deeper into space, every time she looked at Lee she added more items to the list of things she wished she could say during her upcoming debriefing.

Like how she always ended up killing Leobens and Simons by cutting their throats. Only this time the weapon she had at hand was a bullet, not a knife or shard of broken glass.

That had her turning over her right hand, looking at her palm and mentally tracing where the sharp edge of that bit of mirror had sliced her as she drove the pointed end into the neck of Bed Side Manner Simon.

_Game face, Starbuck; don't lose your game face. New Caprica is light-years away and that frakker is beyond dead. You killed him with your own bare hands, remember? He can't touch you now. _

Interesting how Simon became Leoben within the stretch of one thought. Not to mention how the word 'touch' had so many sinister meanings when it came to that particular model of Cylon. Or the number of times she had retreated to her memories of being touched – mentally, physically and emotionally – by Lee while she was being held captive by Leoben.

Not that he'd ever know that. The last thing Lee Adama would ever know was that he had her shield or that she'd been forced to play 'house' with a Cylon.

A cold sweat broke out underneath her Marine garb. Memories continued to strobe in front of her even as her eyes stayed wide open. Flashes of her captivity and battling Cylons interlocked with her current reality. The Raptor hitting the trap and descending into Galactica's hanger bay happened at the same time she relived falling into that crater after tackling a Six in that Delphi museum. The steady drag of the lift taxiing the Raptor forward mimicked her being helplessly towed away by the pair of Centurions sent to find her and bring her to Leoben even as the Cylons were still landing their occupation force on New Caprica. The sounds of an active hanger bay taking place beyond the still-sealed doors of the Raptor's cabin mirrored the way she was trapped in that apartment, able to see out the windows but unable to escape Leoben's prison.

She was the only one in the theatre, watching 'Kara's World According to Leoben', all because Major Adama had to go and play soldier. Getting himself into a situation where Simon seized the opportunity to use him as a human shield. The skinjob had Lee's head locked underneath his chin with one hand and the other hand brandishing an automatic weapon at everyone else. Reaching for her rifle rather than her side-arm, she did the only thing she could do: she lifted her arm and took the only shot she had. Her bullet passed within an eighth of an inch of Lee's head and the wider calibre round did what it was supposed to do. It ripped Simon's carotid artery to shreds. The Cylon fell and whatever few bullets he reflexively squeezed off ended up embedded in the overhead panelling.

The childhood habit of counting the number of seconds between a lightening flash and the trailing thunder was exactly what she did as she focused on the exit wound on the Cylon's neck. Only now, instead of her eyes fixed on the sky, her gaze was locked on Simon's mortal wound. She counted the number of pulses, putting the concept of a human heart into a Cylon's body was something she never could fully accept, it took for the dying Cylon to push its life's blood out of its body. Recent memories layered over a deeper memory. She did the same thing on Caprica the first time she killed a Simon; she had to make sure the frakker was good and dead before she left the room. The eerie resemblance of the decking on The Caspian matching the floor in that 'hospital' affected her – sounds of team-members mopping up the scene were distant and muffled to her ears as they competed for attention with her flashback.

Gunny's hand falling on her shoulder, telling her she did good, made her jump. Game face firmly in-place, Lee's orders to fall out had her shouldering her weapon and filing out of the room. Setting her feet in motion and gaining the corridor didn't stop the back-flashes from dogging her every step. She barely remembered following the rest of Gunny's team – Lee's team – to the hanger bay or even boarding the Galactica bound Raptor.

Tracing the up-swinging Raptor hatch with her eyes was a direct re-enactment of her lifting her gaze to the horizon and watching the initial Cylon invasion force scream its way across the New Caprican skyline.

"We'll fight them until we can't."

In her mind, she was talking to the Chief. Why everyone else in the Raptor was clapping her on the shoulder and giving her different variations of, 'hell, yeah!' was something that didn't register until Lee's voice cut through the haze of her mental movie.

"Starbuck – I said, 'are you ready'?" Hands on his hips and clipboard already tucked underneath one arm, his broad shoulders threw a shadow across her face. "I didn't realize you wanted a personal invitation the debriefing."

Well behind him, a blonde-haired Specialist was dropping down the access stairs two at a time – exactly the same way Leoben did when he returned to that apartment after being resurrected.

"You know me – I hate being where I'm not wanted." Talking to the living memory, she didn't see how the deprecating sarcasm in her answer had made Lee's lip twitch.

Releasing her safety harness and standing, a strong arm clamping down her arm kept her from clearing the Raptor's cabin.

"And what's that supposed to mean, Captain?"

The way Lee lifted his chin matched the dare he didn't put into so many words.

Unconsciously squaring her hips with her shoulders upped the charge in the static field that was crackling between their bodies.

"Don't you _**ever**_ do that to me again, do you understand me?"

"In case you haven't noticed, _Thrace_, you are a part of the Colonial Fleet, not a casual member of some after-school club."

Throwing the words she used in her 'Welcome to Nugget Training' speech in her face made her step even closer to Lee. Maybe now he'd get what she was saying.

"The same goes for you, _Adama_." Mimicking the same tone he used to say her last name, she let his surname hang in the air for moment before making it a point to sweep her eyes over pieces of Marine garb he had yet to shed. "Do us all a favour. Save the black for funerals and wedding anniversaries."

The muscles in his jaw clenched and released as she watched one retort after another flit across his face.

It was the grip on her arm that told her he'd finally come up with an appropriate comeback.

"Kara – what's wrong with you? I don't see you for two weeks and when I do, you save my life only to…"

His trailing question and guarded expression wasn't the barbed zinger and scathing look she was expecting.

"You know where I've been."

"Yeah – anywhere but here."

He didn't have to say, 'the truth stings'. It was in the way he read the way her eyes flared and non-guilty look on his face when he didn't take back his words.

Thirty-six hours after their Dance had ended, Cottle, in all his bedside glory, made it clear he wasn't going to reinstate her flight status until her ribs fully knit. The crotchety old man mumbled something about not wanting his carefully hoarded supply of pain meds to be tapped by some Viper pilot who didn't have enough sense to keep her broken ass out of a cockpit. Correcting him that it was her nose that had been broken and not her ass earned her a one-way ticket out of Sickbay and her well-documented ass still grounded. Hence the reason why Tigh had signed off on it and Helo had given her his blessing – for whatever that was worth – to go off-ship. A series of work orders for ships on the outer edges of the Fleet had come through – a detail that would take at least two weeks to complete – and she had jumped at the chance to get off the Battlestar. Her busted face was going to turn more colours than an Aquarian sunset and she didn't want to stick around and be Galactica's Side Show of the Month. There were too many pilots and not enough Vipers as it was; Lee would have no problem filling her slot when her name came up in the rotation. She might as well be in a space suit crawling along the outside of a hull of some ship out in East Frakutu. At least she was doing something useful. Her body might not be able to take the g-forces necessary for launch, but she could wield a hammer and plasma torch as well as the Chief. The reason why she'd been paired up with Cally, doing the repairs to The Caspian instead of Tyrol, was due to the fact that Mr. Cally had drawn Dad-Duty. Not to mention that the same morning she and Cally put out was when Galen was blessed with the distinct honour of separating landing gear of Hot Dog's Viper from the ass-end of Showboat's Raptor. Still had no idea how that happened, but seeing as how Hot Dog still hadn't figured out that no one wanted to hear about the rash he had on his teabags, anything was possible.

"Why did you leave?"

His soft tone, the need to understand something he should already know, made her give him the tender, hesitant, honesty he sought.

"Because I couldn't stay, Lee." It was the truth. For so many reasons, but for the most part, "Because I can't – I'm not ready to do," she waved her hands in the meagre space between their bodies, "this with you."

Didn't he understand???

"Do what, Kara – be a friend?"

The insinuation that everything they had gone through at The Dance was one of her frakking head-trips, the hint of whine in his voice, was enough to change her soft look of 'please, try to get what I'm saying' to a hard, sour, 'why am I even bothering' scowl.

"You know Lee, you accuse me of running away, of protecting myself at all costs and not letting anyone 'in' is a load of bullshit. News flash, Flyboy; you've been in my head from day one – DAY ONE." Stepping into his very personal space, she mentally projected moments from their lives: when she confessed to him about Zak, when she quoted Kataris from memory, when she told him she was nothing but a frak up, when they sat side-by-side next to that campfire on Kobol chatting while they cleaned their weapons, when she agreed to be his CAG on Pegasus even though they both knew she hated being on that ship, when she asked him why she was what he really wanted on New Caprica, when she pushed him into that boxing ring two weeks ago.

Now, it was her turn to grip his arm. Speaking slowly, he was going to understand every word she was about to say.

"I've answered your question, Lee – time and time again; you've just never allowed yourself to hear it." One more image flashed between them. "Don't blame me for you not knowing what you were looking at."

Brushing past Lee, the fact that he didn't cringe at her touch was a subconscious test unto itself. One she didn't know she gave until she realized how relieved she was that he didn't hate her anymore.

The hanger bay was a mine field of back-flash triggers. Somehow, she made it through the hatch and into the connecting corridor. She needed to get debriefed and then she'd escape. Somewhere private, where she could be alone and no one would bother her. There was going to be some serious drinking going on, the kind that would make her introspective and morose – not the boisterous Queen of the Triad Table holding court for all and sundry.

He had told her that he'd missed her, as they were holding each other up in that boxing ring. But then again, he'd also told her that he needed her so badly that it scared him.

Lee Adama might be better at putting his thoughts into words and romantic overtures, but there wasn't a single time he didn't do something that she hadn't matched with a non-verbal or verbally-veiled declaration of her own.

She knew exactly how frakking terrifying it was to need someone – _to love someone _– as badly as she knew she needed – _loved_ – Lee Adama. The Gods knew that she threw everything she had against that need and she lost every time. The Gods also knew that need, that love, was a motivating factor behind almost everything she did. She single-handedly pushed for the Caprica rescue mission because she had heard how happy Dee was to be with Lee. And when Simon had Lee in his grasp, she did what she had to do, knowing that the small gains she had made since escaping New Caprica were going to be crushed under the onslaught of released memories and vivid back-flashes.

Tipping the spout of the tall rectangular bottle back to her lips, the Chief's Special Brew was little more than water filling the spaces between her teeth.

That was the real reason why she was so pissed at him for playing 'soldier' today. That's why she all but threatened him. She had no other way to tell him that if he died, she'd die.

The reason why she had tears in her eyes, tears she refused to let fall, was the hard truth of the matter.

If she had to explain to Lee why she did the things she did, if he couldn't see it for himself, then he never truly saw _her_.

That's when one tear did slide down the slope of her cheek.

Because it didn't change the fact that she shared her soul with Lee Adama and he obviously didn't even know it.


	5. What I Mean To Say

My Solution to the Quadrangle of Doom

* * *

**_"You and Kara Thrace are connected… I'll marry you… until the Cylons come back or Kara Thrace walks back into your life."_**

**_"Tell me you're just as afraid as I am, about needing someone as much as I need you."_**

**_"I'm not the one you want to be with, Kara."_**

**_"KARA THRACE LOVES LEE ADAMA!"_**

**_"Things just got complicated – again."_**

**Unfinished Business, Extended Version**

* * *

Chapter Five: What I Mean to say...

* * *

Thousands of pictures had been posted onto the walls of the Hall of Remembrance over the past three years. Too many pictures had been added during the years that the Fleet had been on the run. The grimmest reminder of just how precarious their lives were was exemplified by the fact that those who posted the original pictures were now themselves pictures on the wall.

That's where he found her. Standing by herself in front of a standee that was a resting place for dozens of Prayer Candles. Staring straight ahead, she never saw him approach. Or, at least he thought she hadn't – until she called out to him.

"What do you want, Lee?"

The fragileness in her voice made him slow his steps. Carefully picking a path through the hundreds of ghosts floating about the Hall, he quietly came to stop near her elbow. Following her line of sight, it wasn't hard to pick out the one picture that had Kara's complete attention.

Sliding a hand into his pocket, his fingers gripped a prescription bottle. Drawing the plastic container out of his pants, he looked sideways at the woman he loved, lost and lost again.

"Cottle gave me these to give to you." Solemn, he stretched his hand towards Kara. "He wanted me to tell you that Kat never needed them."

"Did he now?" Plucking the bottle out of his palm, she gave it a harsh shake before wrapping her fingers around it.

Breathing through her caustic tone, Lee tucked his hands back into his pockets and kept his eyes on Kara. "She passed away before she could take them."

A glassy sheen filled her eyes and the same hand that held the pill bottle she used to drag across the end of her nose. Refusing to give into the wave of sadness that gripped her, a deprecating smirk twisted the corners of her mouth. Speaking to Kat's picture and wrapping her arms around her stomach, she murmured, "You had to frakking fight me all the frakking way, didn't you, Katraine?"

The silence stretched but it wasn't uncomfortable. It was more like the quiet that follows a storm, when the damage and wreckage is first assessed and all you can do is walk among the debris with a morbid sense of awe.

Still not looking at him, she asked, "So – what are you going to do now?"

"About you taking sleeping pills?" He shrugged nonchalantly. "Considering that they're non-narcotic and you won't end up in a coma the next time you get drunk-"

The chortle Kara couldn't hold back made him reflexively smile.

"I don't see how, as your CAG, how it's any of my business."

Without missing a beat, he reached out and curled his hand around her upper arm. The way she let him turn her partially towards him and the fact that she was now looking at him instead of Kat was why his hand stayed where it was.

"As you're friend, Kara, I would be glad to make it my business."

Watching her purse her lips and ignoring the impulse to track whatever it was that was behind him that she was finding so interesting, he simply waited.

"Why are you here, Lee?"

The obvious answer – the easy answer – would be that he was just giving her the pills she had originally given to Kat. And, if that was the real answer to her real question, then that would be his answer.

But that wasn't her question. Her question was her needing to know why he was here, with her, instead of 'home' with his wife – where he should be. That was something he wasn't ready to tell her. Not yet, anyway. That is, not until she answered his own question within a question.

"Why isn't Anders here with you?" The hint of accusation in his voice wasn't him making a dig at the man Kara had married, it was sincere. As a captain of a Pyramid team, he should be able to identify with what Kara was going through. He'd know just how personal it was when a member of the team was no longer among the living.

"He's busy teaching Seelix how ball a Pyramid player with her hand instead of using her shoulder." Looking him square in the eyes, she countered. "Why isn't Dee here with you, Lee?"

"Because she had no place here, Kara." He didn't need to think about his answer. It was obvious, natural and completely true on many, many, levels. Giving a low whistle, he popped his eyebrows as Kara's insinuation registered. "That must have been an interesting conversation between the three of you."

Sliding her gaze back to the wall, clearly reliving the moment where she caught Sam and Diana in bed together, it was her turn to give her shoulders a slight shrug. "They don't know that I saw them."

"Really?" That was a surprise. Concerned, he gave her a questioning look. "That doesn't sound like you."

"I know – huh?" She snorted at herself as she dragged her toes across the decking. "I've struck a 'Superior Asshole' because he made the mistake of teasing me about my call-name and yet when I see my 'husband' with a lap-full of Diana Seelix I can walk away without anyone knowing I was there in the first place."

Lee found it interesting that his response to Kara going quiet was to simply look at the flickering flames coming from the candle wicks and think about what he would do if he ever caught Dee with someone else.

"Lee – I didn't say anything because I didn't care. I wasn't 'numb' or 'shocked' or any of that bullshit people talk about feeling. I was more like, 'great; good for them' because what I walked in on looked like a two-way street, which is something Sam deserves and is something he and I never had."

If he were to be perfectly honest with himself, if he caught Dee frakking someone else, he'd be hurt. Not because she had found something she needed in someone else, but because she would've felt the need to sneak around behind his back. If she were to come to him and tell him she needed what he wasn't giving her, he'd gladly let her go so that she could be happier with someone else. Lords knew she wasn't happy with him, on a lot of levels. Frak – the only time he and Dee had a two-way street was when he was on the same street she thought he should be travelling.

Scanning the pictures mounted on the wall, photos of happy couples were interspersed with the photos of individuals.

"It's pretty rare for someone like that to come into your life." Keeping his focus on the image of a smiling man and woman posing with their dog, the echo of a long-ago conversation with Dee echoed in his mind, '… _until the Cylons come back or Kara Thrace comes back into your life'_.

"To find someone who you want to be with instead of someone you chose to be with." Regret and the resulting pain of taking someone's advice a little bit too much to heart underscored Kara's words. Sam's plaintive accusation of, '_I'm not the man you want to be with_', was never truer.

"But to actually be with that person, rather than just finding her, is scary. Don't you think? Because, you know, anything can happen. If you're truly that person's soul-mate, no matter what happens between the two of you, if 'it's' there, 'it's' there forever and you have no choice but to live with it or die without it." Risking a glance at Kara, she found him looking for his eyes and not some far corner of the hallway. An eerie, but welcomed, sense of life repeating itself filled the spaces around them and chased the lingering ghosts back to their pictures. _'Tell me you're just as afraid as I am, about needing someone as much as I need you.'_

"Even if you're not sure why that person wants – needs – to be with you in the first place?" Barely more than a whisper, Kara's real question was, _'Tell me you're just as afraid as I am, about needing someone as much as I need you'_.

"Even if, Kara," Lee answered honestly. For the first time since approaching her, he let hope creep into his words. Inside his head, he was standing naked and shouting to the stars, _'LEE ADAMA LOVES KARA THRACE!_' "But I imagine that it would help if that other person knew exactly why she was the one person I learned I couldn't live without."

"I imagine it would." Weak and fragile, a wobbly smile quirked her mouth and crinkled the very edges of her eyes just before her expression grew wide and wary. "But what if there were things that the other person didn't know because she didn't tell him because she didn't know how to or was afraid to tell him?"

"That's when soul-mates become friends before they become frak-buddies. There's a lot of room for secrets in friendship. And hopefully, the deeper the friendship, fewer secrets will be kept."

He didn't know when it happened, but he suddenly realized that he and Kara had moved into each other's very personal spaces. He was inches from her and he had his fingers clasped around her hands. The glow of dozens of candles framed the contours of her face and threw red-gold tones onto her hair.

This wasn't the first time he had been this close to her, but it was the first time he was truly looking at her while being this close to her. This time, it wasn't about him. This time, it wasn't about her. This time, it was about them. And, judging by the way a hundred different emotions flitted across her face and the wobble that hadn't left her mouth, she was trying to come to some sort of decision and balance it against an internal set of scales.

He had pushed her too hard once with the intensity of his feelings. That had been a mistake. He wasn't going to it again. He had said everything that he had to say and had done so without putting any pressure on her.

So engrossed in keeping his need in-check, he never felt one of her hands slip free.

He nearly jumped when she cupped his cheek with a feather-light hand.

"Kara Thrace really does love Lee Adama." Her declaration was simple, succinct and totally Kara in its hesitancy and blatant promise.

Smiling at her, he couldn't resist squeezing her hand and giving her his own promise.

"I'm glad things just got more complicated – again."


End file.
